Hollywood's Secret Baby

“Care for a real drink, Hot Stuff?” he drops my hand when he escorts me to the side of his car, which is about as different a breed from my beat-up Jeep as my memory of Cory is from the one holding the door of his Mercedes coupe open for me.

This is still about only the third sentence either of us has said to each other. Ever since he appeared on the scene, I’ve been stunned into silence. This changes when we both sit in his car and he starts up the engine. Before we pull away, I place my hand over his on the steering wheel.

“Is that really you?”

“In the flesh,” Cory answers, flashing his perfect teeth. “Though I could ask the same. I guess these ugly ducklings finally came into their own.”

“Where have you been all this time?” I pause, because I’m just about to drop the bomb about his secret daughter. It’s not something I can keep inside, but I claw it back deep in my chest and merely say, “So much has happened since you were gone.”

He bites his lips and looks up at the ceiling of his car as if his answer is written up there, waiting for him to read it off like a script. “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve been up to these past few years.”

I literally bite my lips to keep from blurting out that nothing he’s gone through could compare to raising his child. Every heartbeat I seem to swing back and forth between wanting to lash out at him for abandoning me without so much as a note. The next, my heart is dreaming of the future we should have had all this time. The family we could be.

I can’t help but ask again, “Where did you go?”

Cory sighs. “I was really hoping that question wouldn’t pop up until we had drinks in our hands. Well, better drinks than those dollar margaritas that is.”

I shake my head to clear it of all the thoughts I’ve had the past decade. Random things that would remind me of Cory through the years. Like whenever Linkin Park would pop up on the radio. God, I hated that music, but he would listen to them on repeat. I’m happy that when his car radio switches on that it’s tuned to some jazz station, but that only brings up more questions. What else has changed about him?

“You just disappeared,” I say, not meaning to let all the emotion leak into the words like an accusation. I thought I was over this. I mean, I was. But now he’s in front of me, and it’s like I’m eighteen again, staring at the positive pregnancy test, wondering if Cory was ever going to come back.

He stood me up for eleven years. And now he’s back without any warning. And I need at least an inkling of an explanation before I go anywhere with him.

“We were supposed to meet back up at Coffee Hero the day after the prom,” I explain. “But you never showed. I waited until they closed. Did you know that? They had to ask me to leave. Then I spent a whole week calling you and emailing you every hour. No one knew where you had gone. Your old house was empty. You didn’t leave me a note or anything. Didn’t even try to get in touch with me. When I needed you the most, you were nowhere to be found”

Here I was, planning for this to be my night to show how much I’ve grown since high school. How much the people from my past couldn’t hurt me anymore. But I’m acting like a teenager again. Tears streaming down the same path they did eleven years ago in that café while I watched out the window for my friend who never showed.

“It’s a long story,” Cory says, as if that’s going to dissuade me from wanting to hear it.

“Long, short, doesn’t matter. It just better be good.”

A sad smirk pulls up one corner of his lips. “It wasn't all good, but it wasn’t all bad either. Definitely would have been more of the former had you been around though.”

He used to like to talk in this convoluted manner back in high school too. Thought it made him sound smart. It’s nice to see that at least some things remain the same.

Cory places his hand on my knee. Squeezes in just the right place like he used to when he wanted to tickle me. That was back when were kids. Before puberty made things weird.

Everything’s different now.

Me.

Him.

The daughter I still haven’t mentioned.

Everything is so much more complicated than things were back then.

Chapter 3

I don’t know what I was expecting when Cory said he wanted to go somewhere quieter to talk. Maybe in the back of my mind, I was envisioning some upscale restaurant with white tablecloths and champagne served in buckets full of ice. After seeing what he was driving, that didn’t seem like such a far-fetched idea. He was definitely dressed the part. It didn’t have to be fancy (though I wouldn’t have said no to such a proposal), but I guess I was hoping for somewhere actually quiet. Because like it or not, we need to have a serious conversation.

Instead, I get teenage Cory all over again.

“I can’t believe this place is still here,” Cory says, biting into a slice of pizza that shines with grease. “Looks like they haven’t changed a thing, either.”

This much is true. The Pizza Emporium looks exactly like it did eleven years ago, only with twice as many stains and longer rips across the fake red leather covering the bench seats. The worst part isn’t the teenagers in the corner creating so much noise that I can barely hear the lyrics to the pop music blaring over the tinny speakers. No, the worst part is that we’re sitting in our old booth. The one Lizzie and I have adopted as our own.

We come here at least once a month. She likes the old school jukebox with songs. I like the nostalgia. Because this used to be Cory’s favorite place. And we always sat in the same booth we’re occupying now.